Monday, April 26, 2010

So...Fridays have been really awesome for me lately! Two Fridays ago, I ran 6 miles! In a row! Crazy right? Maybe not for some people, but seriously, when I was a kid, I never ran even one mile straight. When we did fitness tests, I would walk/jog out of pure laziness. I've really taken to running lately, which is awesome!This past Friday's fabulosity included another 6 mile run. That, by itself, is awesome, but I was also able to shorten my overall run time by 3 minutes. This is all, btw, on a treadmill...so yeah, I know, it will be harder outdoors. The furthest distance I've run outdoors is just under 5 miles. Did those in just under 50 minutes with mah man.

Oh blog, I feel terrible for abandoning you this weekend, though I promised not to this time. Let me post again today and make up for it! You accept? Yay!So...I started today off with a green smoothie! Spinach, a peeled tangelo, half a frozen banana, frozen mango, water and ice. It was awesome! Then I had some cereal and almond milk. I have been OBSESSED with this lately:

It's so good! I used to always buy the Twigs, Flakes & Clusters cereal at Trader Joe's, but I like this plain fiber cereal much better. It has a graham cracker-y taste and is not as grainy as the Twigs, Flakes & Clusters. And you know....the fiber...girl's gotta eat! I lost a bunch of weight a few years ago doing the low-carb thang and can still be kind of cautious with carbohydrates. But, if a carb is complex (in personality...not just structure) and high in fiber, I'll dig it.

I didn't have any meat that I could add to the salad, besides, that string cheese had been waiting for his time to shine. I had to oblige.

This morning, before work, I headed to Target. I kind of go there a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. I told myself this weekend, after I killed the bag o' Dark Chocolate M&M's in the freezer that I wouldn't replace them. Unfortunately, in that lecture to myself, I was overly specific and said "Dark Chocolate M&M's", thereby creating leeway for these purchases:

From left to right: useful, yummy, new-to-me yummy and totally unnecessary at this point.

I can justify anything...one of my most useful and most annoying skills.

I had to buy those Goody headbands because for some reason I am down to two. One useful stretchy headband (kept in my car for working out) and one stretched out...totally useless headband (kept in my bathroom where a solid, but feeble, attempt is put forward every night to utilize it). In the same vein, I am missing a whole crapload of ponytail rubberbands. I don't understand how I lose so many of those things. I put them on my wrist every morning and they either go on my head or stay on my wrist until I arrive home. It's not as if I fling them about as I walk down the street. Why/how do they disappear? I don't get it.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

...I totally meant 3 days later. A substantial amount of schoolwork was thrust upon me, kind of last minute too. So...guess what I've doing! Aside from that, there hasn't been too much interesting stuff. I butchered my first rack of ribs! Go me! And some other stuff happened too! I've got pictures from this weekend, so let's just take a look...

And I kept it all cold with one of the coolest things I've ever scored for $1 at Target!

This is by far one of the more useful $1 items I've purchased. A Disney princess ice pack! True Love, indeed! LOL!

On Friday, I decided to man up and butcher the ribs I bought. Funnily enough, I had no idea I needed to cut this up until I found a random article describing how to do it! Here we go:

Hanging out in the sink.

Post-cutting.

Leftover pieces, I slow roasted these with the ribs.

So....don't have pictures after that! Someday, I'll get the hang of this, I swear! But here's what I did:

*Keep in mind that this takes a while, I had all afternoon at home to do this!

Totally Awesome Spicy Ribs:

Ingredients:

-1 rack of ribs (plus the riblets and skirt if ya got em!)

-5 cloves garlic minced

-Lawry's seasoning (or similar seasoning blend)

-1 cup barbecue sauce

-Sriracha

Directions:

(Remember, if you're cooking the riblets too, treat them exactly the same as the ribs)

Preheat oven to 250F.

Sprinkle the riblets and the meaty side of the ribs lightly with Lawry's seasoning. Sprinkle the bone side of the ribs with Lawry's as well, I'm more generous with the salt on this side. Don't go overboard though.

Rub minced garlic into the meat side of the ribs and then place on a foil lined baking sheet. Cover entire tray with foil and put in preheated oven.

After 2 hours, take tray out of the oven, uncover drain some of the liquid.

Spread barbecue sauce over the ribs. You can coat the entire rack (top and bottom), but it really isn't necessary. At this point, the ribs will be fork tender so trying to flip will be...difficult. :D If you'd like heat, add Sriracha to the barbecue sauce before you spread. It really was delicious! Start with a little, and taste before you spread it on. All together, I probably added about 2-3 tsp. for the whole thing. I am not, unfortunately, that hardcore.

After the sauce is on, cover the pan again and return to oven for another 3-4 hours, this time at 200F.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

These next few weeks are crunch time at school. Just a precious few more weeks of classes, then finals. I'm currently trying to forget what lies ahead by drinking wine. Blogging is something that I need to really decide to carve out some time for and I'm determined to do it!
I will be back tomorrow!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I am really, really bad at checking the weather every morning. So, in my typical fashion, I stepped out the door in a tank top and a thin cardigan. Why? Well, because it was warm last week, why would it get cold again, right? Needless to say, I was freezing when it started to rain. Luckily though, I had opted not to wear sandals today! That would have been terrible. After a long day at school, I stopped at Target to pick up a few things before work. Food today was pretty typical. The past week, I decided to pack less food for school/work because sometimes I didn't need the snack, but I'd eat it anyway since I had packed it. I had a green smoothie before heading to school:

I have a green smoothie almost every morning and I love it! It has totally changed my life. I mean, I don't dislike eating vegetables, but it gives me some wiggle room, just in case. Here are the packed items for the rest of the day:

That's almond milk in the big tupperware, my Trader Joe's cereal in the small baggie, a grapefruit and some almonds + chocolate chips in the small tupperware. There was also a string cheese I added for some extra protein at the last minute...which reminds me, I had some coffee that escaped the camera too! Ugh, rookie mistake! I ate the cereal around 10:00am, I just dump it in the almond milk and consume! The grapefruit was eaten around 11:30ish...and I snacked on the almonds throughout the day. When I finally got to work (starving!), I ate this amazing concoction:

that's roasted zucchini and sweet potato, black beans, corn, chicken breast and goat cheese. It was amazing! Since it was so cold, I also had some green tea in my happy mug:

Excuse my messy desk...that's pretty typical too! LOL! I don't know what's for dinner, C won't be home until around 8 and I have a lot of work to do.

Not really looking forward to it, but oh well! I realized today that I use a lot of plastic forks and spoons, I should really do something about that.

Monday, April 19, 2010

I've been craving barbecue lately. Must be the summah, summah, summah time coming upon California. Maybe it's because I'm obsessed with barbecue sauce and will put it on anything. We've been on a chicken drumstick kick the past few weeks...they're cheap. And drumsticks are the funnest, they come with a handle! I can buy a family pack of chicken drumsticks and it will feed us for 2 meals, plus leftovers for C's lunch. I'm crafty, I know!But...I saw an ad in the circulars this week for cheap ribs...so my thoughts for the past few days have included getting my crafty little hands on some ribs. It didn't help that we went to Disneyland this past Saturday, where somebody's wife mentioned their vineyards Cabernet would go great with barbecue ribs. (P.S. Ribs also come with a handle!) I headed to the store after work to find that the stuff only came in the "family pack". A family pack of ribs is not the same as chicken. Chicken can be nicely portioned out, it's not hard to cook chicken more than one day because it can be prepared quickly. The ribs were not practical! Unfortunately, that did not sway me...

So, a year later (and some posts removed), so much has changed. As of this very day, I am 24, one semester away from graduation and just over year from being married. It slays me how much can change in just a year. I'm in a different living space and definitely a different mind space. A year ago, I decided to move in with my fiance! It's so awesome! The transition was ridiculously smooth! I still work at the community college I used to attend, I'm still at the same Orange County university and I'm (hopefully) going to keep on at it with their graduate program next spring. I really want to put myself out here to help me remember this time. I love food and get a kick out of looking back at what I ate. I'll be doing the last minute things to plan my wedding in the next year or so. I've always sucked royally at keeping a journal and really want to make it work this time. With a bit of luck and some effective time management, maybe I'll pull off reincarnating this blog.